Bear Is Broken (16 page)

I studied the pictures from my chair, trying to pick out Keith Locke,
but my eyes locked on another face: a broad-shouldered girl in a black
bodysuit with a maroon S on her chest, posing with a large red- and
white-bladed oar leaning in the crook of her shoulder. I felt a jolt
run from the back of my scalp down to my heels, a physical memory
of the shock I’d gotten yesterday evening. That was the girl who had
Tasered me at the Seward.

I looked at Greta and saw the family resemblance. “You have a
daughter at Stanford?”

“I thought you came here to talk about my son.”

“You must be thrilled. I always wanted to go there. We couldn’t afford
it, but the main thing was I couldn’t get in. I had a rough couple of
years at the beginning of high school. I did two years at San Francisco
City College, then transferred to Berkeley. I was pretty proud of that.”

“Stanford was always Christine’s number one pick. They have a fine
women’s crew.”

“Rowing, huh? I was always more partial to cycling. They don’t
give scholarships to cyclists, unfortunately.”

“Christine was a merit scholar and the salutatorian of her class
at Choate. She is a scholar first and an athlete second. I fully expect
her to become a career academic. But I don’t intend to discuss my
daughter with you.”

“That’s right. The fact is, I think Keith may be in danger.”

“You mean more than usual?” she asked, making an effort at a smile.
It was then I saw something loosen behind her eyes, laying bare years
and years of anxious days and sleepless nights. She blinked and it was
gone, though her expression didn’t change at all. It was like a person
flipping on a light to get her bearings in a darkened room, then turning
it off before the light could dazzle her eyes.

“I think so. I need to speak with him. I don’t need to know where
he’s been hiding, but I’d like him to give me a call or preferably agree
to meet me someplace he considers safe. Like I said, I’m taking over
my brother’s practice, and there are a lot of loose ends in Keith’s case.”

“That doesn’t sound like life or death to me, nor like anything that
concerns the police.” She waited. She knew there was more. I suppose
with Keith there always was. I couldn’t help thinking of the story Jeanie
had told me about Keith’s first brush with the law, that oral-cop-on-a-
minor charge at the bus stop early Christmas morning. Thinking of
that, and of her daughter with the Taser, I felt sorry for Greta.

I got up from my chair and went to the wall of pictures. “If you’re
looking for Keith you won’t find him,” she said. “There came a point
where I had to take all his pictures down. I keep one in my drawer.”

She went behind her desk, took out a silver-framed photograph, and
handed it to me. It was a portrait of a young man in a cap and gown,
sitting on a grassy lawn in front of a venerable, ivy-covered academic
building. “He never actually graduated,” she said. “He had this taken
a few months after Choate kicked him out, once it became clear that
we couldn’t find another school to accept him. That was fourteen years
ago. He still looks just the same, and he doesn’t have a single degree.”

“There’s always the GED.” Keith was tall, probably six three or four,
with curly brown hair, a widow’s peak accentuated by the graduation
cap, broad cheeks, a wide mouth, and the long fingers of a pianist. He
had a face that would nakedly display every change of emotion. Seeing
the smirk on it, I understood that this was a man for whom the
future and its consequences were trivial things, like debts he had no
intention of paying.

“Yes, I hear they can earn degrees in prison now,” Greta said.

“Is that where you think your son belongs? Prison?”

She came back to the couch and sat down. “You said Keith was in
danger. If that’s truly the case, I would prefer not to be kept in suspense.
If not, I don’t understand your purpose here.”

“My brother may have been shot to send Keith a message.”

“A message. What sort of message?”

“Keep your mouth shut about the dead man you were heaving
into a Dumpster. Don’t tell what you know, whatever that may be. Do
prison time if you have to. That sort of thing.”

She folded her legs Indian-style and sat looking past me with an
unreadable expression. “So you believe someone tried to murder your
brother because of my son.”

I hadn’t meant to put it that way, but there it was. “I want the police
to find the person who shot Teddy, and to help them I need to give
them some details from Keith’s case. Some of the things Keith told my
brother are covered by attorney-client privilege, and I’d need Keith’s
permission before I could divulge them—before I could do so ethically,
anyway. My brother must have some way of reaching him, but
he didn’t share it with me.”

“And you think I may have some way of contacting my son. Well, I
don’t. It’s been over a year since I’ve seen him. I would probably turn
him away if he showed up at the door.”

“Probably?”

She gave a shrug. “He wouldn’t come here. He knows better. He
wouldn’t risk running into his father.”

“I guess I was mistaken, then. I figured if anyone would know how
to find him, his family would.” I hesitated. “I thought you might be
protecting him.”

“I wish I could protect him. I would pay just about anything if
someone would tell me where he was. You see, when you called me,
I had an idea that you might know.”

“He was making a deal with the DA to provide information about
a homicide. Then, just before the shooting, he disappeared. He might
be afraid for his life. I think I can tell you that much, if you don’t know
it already. But that’s really all I know for sure.”

“Well, I can’t help you with any of that.” She leaned forward. “Maybe
you can help me, though. I have to see Keith. I must speak with him.”

Her voice wavered, and she tilted her chin defiantly. “I need to touch
him, to hold him. He’s my son, my flesh and blood. If he needs help,
I need to help him. I can’t bear the idea of Keith going to prison. He
wouldn’t be able to bear it, and that means I wouldn’t be able to bear
it. If that makes me soft, I’m soft. But no child of mine deserves to
be thrown away like some—some unwanted dog.” She was not soft
at all. She was as hard and fierce as a mother bear defending her cub.

And yet she kept his picture in a drawer. I handed her the heavy
frame, and she immediately laid it facedown on the couch. On balance
I couldn’t blame her, though I sensed that a woman of a different class,
with less money and less power, would have long since been forced to
accept that her son was lost to her. I found that I admired Greta Locke
for refusing to accept this fact.

“If Keith becomes my client, I’ll have to abide by his wishes. If he
wants to see you, I’ll try to make it happen.”

She jotted a number on a card. “That’s my personal cell phone. If
you call the other number, Chloe will answer.”

She rose, and I understood that I was being told to depart. Casually
she added, “If you can convince him to see me, I’ll pay you twenty
thousand dollars.”

I was floored. “Thanks, but I couldn’t take your money. If Keith wants
to pay me for my trouble, that’s different, but I’d be working for him.”

She seemed to take this in stride, obviously not believing that I’d
refuse the money when the time came. I wasn’t sure I believed it, either.

“Where will you start looking?” she asked.

“I was going to ask you for advice.” The door opened as we reached it.

“I wouldn’t know. Our son has lived his own life for the past fifteen
years. Probably nearby, in the city or close to it. Keith always was a
homebody. That’s what he hated most about boarding school, being
away from San Francisco. Even as a teenager he used to throw tantrums
when it was time to head east for the start of term.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have kept sending him.”

Her eyes slid past me and she gave a nod to Chloe.

“See you at the opera,” I said to the closing door.

I followed half a step behind Chloe, trying to think of something
to say that might charm her. Voices suddenly filled the hall ahead of
us, men’s voices echoing in self-satisfied merriment, women’s voices
climbing to that pitch of laughter that fills a high-ceilinged room. Chloe
put her hand on my arm, and we waited until they were muffled by
a closing door.

“You ought to have been a harbor pilot,” I told Chloe as she released
me and we walked on to the foyer.

That earned me a laugh. “Does this look like a harbor to you? This
is the ocean deep, my friend.” She seemed to reach the limit of banter
required in the name of professional politeness. “Dr. Locke has asked
to see you before you leave.”

“What about his guests?”

Instead of answering she inclined her head toward the door I’d
noticed earlier, on the opposite side of the foyer from the hallway to
Greta Locke’s office. Chloe led me through it into a dining room with
a highly polished table. The table was ringed by high-backed chairs
and overhung by a very large cylindrical chandelier glittering with
silver and glass. Through another set of double doors to my right I
heard voices again. We walked through the dining room and down
the back hall past the kitchen. I followed Chloe through a door into a
book-lined den, from which another closed door gave onto the room
where the party was.

“Dr. Locke will be with you shortly,” she said and shut me in.

Everything was dark leather and heavy shag. The doors were padded
on the inside with plush leather. A massive glass-topped desk was
empty except for a blotter, a green-shaded brass reading lamp, and a
heavy paperweight. One wall held modern medical texts. The other
was divided between antique medical treatises and modern literature,
hardcovers in pristine condition with dust jackets. They were first editions,
I realized, taking one down.

I was still scanning the titles when the door opened and Gerald
Locke came in. I dropped my hand reflexively when he entered. “My
passion,” he said, then added: “Don’t worry, you can touch them.” He
had a broad unhandsome face with a large nose and ears. He shook
my hand, pulled down a book, and showed me where a small child
had scribbled all over the frontispiece in crayon. “This is a first edition
of Frank Norris’s
McTeague
. See what a patient father I am? In a
pristine state this book would be worth nine hundred dollars. I didn’t
even raise my voice.”

I could guess which child had done the scribbling. He poured us
each a Scotch. The cut-glass tumbler that he handed me must have
weighed half a pound. Setting his own drink aside, he perched on the
edge of the desk and studied me with a frown.

Through the door I heard Greta Locke regaling her guests, followed by
another peal of general laughter. “Let’s cut to the chase.” Locke closed the
book. “When my son hired your brother, I made a number of inquiries.
I came to understand that your brother is one of the dirtiest lawyers in
this town, about as dirty as it’s possible to be in San Francisco. I have a
feeling Keith knew his reputation. I can guess what you told Greta, and I
won’t have you repeat it to me. Neither Keith nor his case had anything
to do with what happened to your brother, and I won’t have you coming
into my home and making insinuations that amount to blackmail.
With one call I could have you arrested for extortion.”

“Maybe, but the police would release me on ten thousand dollars
bond, the case would never come to trial, and you would end up standing
there holding your hat.” I set my glass on a shelf of first editions.
If he was too good to drink with me, I wasn’t about to wet my lips.

“I’m not after your money. Whether you like it or not, there’s a strong
possibility that someone tried to kill my brother to send a message
to your son, to intimidate him into not talking to the DA. The police
ought to be looking into that possibility, but I can’t approach them
until I have Keith’s permission to disclose what I know.”

“You don’t understand. You see, my son is a—a moral coward. Among
other things.” A sheen of sweat had appeared on Gerald’s face. He seized
his Scotch glass and drank from it.

“Is that why you cut him off?”

“He cut us off, the way I see it. Not that it makes any difference.
This latest charge—the dead professor in the sex club—well, I never
imagined it would come to something like this. But I can’t say I’m
surprised, either. If Keith thinks that talking might get him killed, he
won’t talk. It’s that simple.”

“Then they’ll probably charge him with something once they catch
up with him. In that case he’ll need a lawyer.”

“You, I suppose.” He went around the desk for a refill and looked me
up and down with distaste. “Are you as—as effective as your brother?”

“If Teddy was crooked, I didn’t know it, and I haven’t seen any evidence
of it. He won trials, and he made police officers look bad, and in
the process he didn’t make any friends in the district attorney’s office. In
other words, he did his job. He was very, very good at finding witnesses
and evidence that other lawyers might not have found. Depending
on your point of view that’s just good old-fashioned investigation, or
it’s too good to be true. But whatever Teddy was, I’m straight. And I
intend to take over his practice until he’s well enough to come back
to work. For as many of his old clients as will have me, anyway.”

“The hell you’re straight. You’re all crooks. They ought to charge
you as accomplices after the fact.” He eyed me over his glass. “You’re
taking on all his clients?”

“You don’t think your son should have a lawyer? Or mount a defense?
You’d like him just to plead guilty to whatever the DA charges
him with, maybe first-degree murder, and take the maximum?”

“You want my honest opinion?”

I didn’t answer. It’s better not to, when people ask stupid questions.